


Pigeonholed

by Attie Alba (negative_space)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Claustrophobic British Seaside Towns, Coming of Age, Cuttlefish, Magical Realism, Other, Owls, Pigeons, Science Lesbians, United Kingdom, Useless Protagonist, Vigilantism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:09:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6148618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/negative_space/pseuds/Attie%20Alba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Griselda Pules is an incredibly boring girl, with the only scruple of her otherwise dime-a-dozen personality being her ardent love of science.  Contested against local paragon of perfection Violet Irving in menial local science fairs, she wishes for once to win where it really counts.  However, her grandfather's sudden death brings about an unlikely burden on her dreams- a burden shaped like a pigeon farm...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which The Heroine Cries A Lot

Griselda Pules was an astonishingly boring girl, with one semi-unique trait: she had an enthusiasm for marine biology. Somehow this managed to remain unique in her hometown, the charming seaside village of Lixend Clackover. Other people pursued normal careers, like engineering or civil service or necromancy. Not Griselda Pules. Griselda wanted to do cool stuff with the ocean. She wasn't exactly sure what, but she knew the ocean was a cool thing.

Griselda attended a perfectly boring high school on one side of Lixend Clackover. Its name was Lixend Hill Academy. It was peculiar, as the name of Lixend Clackover wasn't divisible, but many students hypothesised that the "hill" part was a metaphor for the upward struggle of adolescence. This theory remained unconfirmed, but still held a notion of truth.

Lixend Hill was a rather tedious school to attend. It was old, and very cold in the winter, as pleas for central heating fell on deaf ears. The colour scheme it was painted in, incidentally, was disgusting, but the art students were the only ones to really protest. Griselda, being an uncultured swine with no flair for the arts, didn't notice. This didn't stop her from feeling academic wanderlust, though. There was a certain other place she'd rather be.

That other place was not Lixend Hill's rival school, Clackover Valley High, though. Clackover Valley wasn't situated in a valley- just on the other side of town. People reckoned the "valley" part was symbolic of the depression most teenagers fell into when they realised the futility of life. There was one girl at Clackover Valley High who had mysteriously evaded this, and it was she who received the brunt of all the envy Griselda Pules could maintain- the beautiful Violet Irving. Violet was gorgeous, charming, brilliant at conversation and even better at science. Griselda Pules could not handle being around Violet. It gave her an existential crisis.

Unfortunately for Griselda, there looked to be an existential crisis forecasted for a month away. Worse still, she'd have to deal with it, and deal with it with stunning scientific flair, if she wanted to satiate that academic wanderlust that plagued her mind. The Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair.

Not many people attended the Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair at all. The Great Baking Soda Shortage of 2004 led to heavy discouragement, and the geology fans of the town would seek their volcanic pursuits elsewhere, albeit begrudgingly. Most other people found it too boring. Only two contestants were recurring, and continued to be recurring ever since their tender ages of eight- Pules and Irving.

This year, the Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair hit its tenth anniversary. Were it a human child, Griselda mused, it could now be held accountable for a crime and arrested. In actual fact, the Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair was now old enough to start supplying really good prizes. And this prize was a scholarship, to only the best science college in the world (or at least the county), AtomTown McSciencePlace Community College.

Griselda had to go to AtomTown McSciencePlace Community College. It wasn't often she felt this kind of need; a burning, unsatisfied physical need just to go somewhere that wasn't a bathroom. The sad fact was, however, that Violet Irving was undisputedly better than her at science. Violet Irving also gave Griselda existential crises whenever she came near. Now, she also administered despair. Griselda knew she stood no chance against Violet Irving. She'd only managed a study on pondweed, and no doubt Irving had something amazing tucked up her perfect sleeve, like the fully illustrated journey of mythical Jonah inside the inside cupboards of the whale who swallowed him complete with full-colour photographs. And a musical number, probably:

_~Ohhh, his name is Jonah, he's a human_

_He's from the Bible, he got swallowed by a whale_

_They didn't know about cetaceans in the day_

_But here be our most fascinating taaaaaale~_

 

_~We're the largest mammals there are_

_Only competitor is the giant squid_

_We beat the squids up and eat 'em for lunch_

_Just like the crap work of that Griselda kid~_

 

Then the singing whales broke into violent refrain:

_~Ohhhh, Griselda sucks, she really does_

_Can't do science to save her liiiiiiiiife!_

_Because Violet Irving is the best and everybody knows_

_And now Griselda,_ YOUR GRANDFATHER IS DEAD~

 

Wait. What?

That was a subverted rhyme!  That wasn't science fair-winning material at all!

Griselda awoke from her brief trance, somewhat dewy-eyed from all the insults these subconscious musical whales had flung at her. She was sitting alone in her bedroom, with no company except for the barn owl that sometimes stared at her from the windowsill. And now her mother was waiting forlornly in the doorway, holding a telephone.

"Griselda, honey," she said, frowning, "bad news.  The hospital phoned up.  Your grandpa died of a heart attack an hour ago."

Griselda cried a lot.


	2. In Which Funerals Are Had

One month later, the day of the Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair was upon Griselda.  But Griselda was not upon the Annual Lixend Clackover Science Fair.  She wasn't even wearing the white labcoat.  The white labcoat didn't even serve a purpose, as the very idea of all scientists wearing labcoats was silly and demeaning and oversimplified the vast diversity of jobs a scientist did, but god damn if Griselda didn't like that labcoat!

Instead she was wearing black, because she was at a funeral.

Specifically, her grandfather's funeral.

Griselda had already cried even more leading up to this day.  She was going to miss her granddad; the idea that from here on he wouldn't be a part of her life was terrifying.  She had many a memory of youngsterhood, sitting on his knee and being taught about various different things he had encountered.  She remembered how he disliked cats, and liked seafood restaurants.  Now he was in a closed coffin at the front of the room.

"Grandfather Pules," proclaimed the priest.  "We are here today to celebrate- no!  We are here to _mourn_ his passing."  He coughed violently, and the people of the pews bowed their heads solemnly.  There were a lot of people here Griselda didn't recognise, and also some strange cooing, clicking noises coming from the roof beams.

"Grandfather Pules was an honourable man," the priest went on, "who served a never-ending, self-imposed duty to his family and this town of Lixend Clackover.  In fact, he never left this town of Lixend Clackover; a sign of how much he loved this community."

More cooing.  More clicking.  It was getting really annoying, not to mention distracting, but Griselda didn't want to look up and see what it was in fear of looking inattentive.

"He loved us so much that on his deathbed, he left us one final speech," the priest said, seemingly immune to the irritating sounds of up above.  "It includes his will.  If you will all stand to my attention, I will read you the final words of Grandfather Pules, who will never be forgotten."

_"Friends, family.  Avians._

_It is with my utmost regret that I announce my passing.  I did not want to have to leave you all so soon, and especially not after that shocking plot twist on Hollyoaks.  I can only hope there is still television in the afterlife, where I will be going._

_I have lived in our beautiful town of Lixend Clackover for all of my many years.  I love our town.  I love it so, so much.  I believe I am its sentinel, and the immune system that fights impurity.  There is no place in England more pure than here.  I would like to believe my work is done.  But the lingering threat is still here, so I am afraid it is not so._

_I live on in the form of my possessions, which I will distribute among my blood spirits._

_First, to my son, Maurice.  You will finally receive your inheritance, and also my wine cellar, which contains ten bottles of my finest whiskey.  Drink until you are up to your eyeballs in intoxicants, son; that is my spirit living on within you.  Remember your old dad._

_To my son's wife, Lydia: I'm glad you saw sense and got rid of that awful bob haircut.  As a reward, you will get some of my savings.  This is for not ruining our family pictures._

_To my bestest of friends, Mister Brendan- you get nothing! Hahaha, I'm kidding.  Help yourself to the silverware.  It's very valuable among collectors._

_To my brother Archie- you really do get nothing, except for the brief and painful sensation of my ghostly foot up your ass.  I think back on the times when I was five years old, and you were seven, and you stole my ice cream, and I do not regret this decision.  That was the war.  Rationing was tight and that was the last ice cream I saw for twenty years.  You pig._

_Lastly, to my granddaughter Griselda, who I will miss dearly upon my departure of this world, especially moreso than Archie.  I believe you are the lifeblood of the Pules family, and it is you with your enthusiasm and drive I believe to be capable of this.  You have now been appointed the owner of my carrier pigeon farm.  You will get to know intimately these pigeons, and it is now your role to look after them.  You, Griselda, have not only inherited these pigeons, but a better future, better than-"_ here, the priest cleared his throat and widened his eyes- _"the ostensibly shitty profession that is marine biology, and looking at stupid goddamn fish all day._

_With this note finished, I leave the fate of Lixend Clackover in good hands._

_Grandfather Pules."_

They then all rose to sing some hymns, although Griselda was still in shock.

There was a flapping of wings from above, and a tawny feather alighted, drifting slowly to the floor.  Griselda realised what was up there.

Lined around the beams of the roof, hiding in the ceiling- was her future.  Rows and rows of them, white and beige and grey.

Pigeons.

 


	3. In Which, Unsurprisingly, Violet Irving Wins the Science Fair

Violet Irving had won the science fair.

"Violet Irving, you have won the science fair!" said Mayor Authorityfigure, who ran the science fair.  "An exceptional well done on your cuttlefish project, and your drive and determination which has led to your beating of the competition.  We are proud to present you with a scholarship to the widely respected scientific college, AtomTown McSciencePlace Community College.  Everyone, give Violet a round of applause!"

The audience, mostly comprised of Violet Irving's many friends, erupted into fevered clapping and cheering.  The girl herself was not as pleased.

"But I'm sure this isn't fair," Violet frowned.  "Griselda couldn't even come today, she was at a funeral!  How do we know I would have won?  How do we know I even deserve this?"

"Rosalind Franklin died before she could get a Nobel Prize!" replied Mayor Authorityfigure with a wide smile.  "Unfairness is prevalent in scientific history, am I right?"  A resounding 'yes' echoed back.  "Go ahead and take that scholarship, Miss Irving!  You're a scientist now!"

A certificate was shoved unceremoniously towards Violet, and she was ushered off the podium by a gaggle of companions, chattering excitedly about the pizza they were now going to have at the only Italian restaurant in town.

 

One margherita pizza pie later, Violet Irving sat on the shoreline.  Not many people wandered the beach on the evenings in Lixend Clackover.  Mostly, they kept to the nightlife and played asinine arcade games until they ran out of change.  Violet was alone- but not for long.

"Mrs Chromatophore?" Violet called out into the briny shallows.  "Are you there?"

Something dark floundered beneath the groyne she sat on, and then an old-ish woman came out from underneath in a spray of salty droplets.  She was dark-skinned with dreadlocked hair in tentacle-like formations, and she wore many layered, floaty cloths in different colours as clothing.  Back in the day, this woman had also won the Annual Lixend Clackover Beauty Pageant, but this fact has nothing to do with the plot.

"Violet, dear," said Mrs Chromatophore, the old woman.  "How lovely it is to see you.  Win the Science Fair?"

"Not quite," Violet spat, her perfect face screwing up into a mixture of guilt and bitterness.  "More like the Science UnFair."

"Puns are bad for the youthful complexion, sweetpea," Mrs Chromatophore chided her.  "And there's no shame in losing.  Next time, eh?"

"I didn't lose," Violet explained, "I won, but Griselda couldn't even be there!  I feel terrible about winning such a rig.  I'm sure she feels awful right now."

"Is she the one who screams in terror whenever you draw near?" Mrs Chromatophore asked, narrowing her hooded eyes.  "She seems a bit strange, and I say this as an old water witch who lives under a groyne."

"Well- I'm sure she has her reasons," claimed Violet, with an airy gesture of her hand.  "She's the only other girl in this village who likes science!  I'd really like to be friends with her."

"Go and do that, then," Mrs Chromatophore shrugged.  "Go to where she is and apologise that she couldn't make it to the competition.  Simple enough, isn't it?"

"Simple except for the first part," Violet frowned.  "How am I meant to know where she is?"

Mrs Chromatophore relaxed for a second and, although this gesture would not have been obvious to the common pleb, she started to perform telepathy.  She did something with her mind's eye, something much too complicated for the narrative, and gazed into the location of Griselda Pules...

...Only to immediately flip out and let out a startled yowling noise, kicking at the sand petulantly. 

 "Mother of Poseidon!" Mrs Chromatophore yelled.  "That old bastard Richard really is at it again!  How'd I know he'd pull such a filthy tactic?"  Violet's eyes widened, and she briefly wondered whether or not to safely tuck Mrs Chromatophore back under the groyne before her rage turned her into a public menace.  Using not psychic powers but instead a wireless printer she had invested in recently, Mrs Chromatophore produced a map and shoved it in Violet's face.

"Listen to me, Violet Irving," Mrs Chromatophore uttered darkly, "you must befriend the everloving shit out of that girl!  It may already be too late, but there is no harm in trying!  Encourage the science!  Encourage all of the science!  The fate of the town is in your hands!"

Mrs Chromatophore then started to make violent flapping gestures with her arms, performing a jaunty and furious river-dance on the wet sand with her bare feet.  Violet ran away with the map, partly out of obligation and partly out of confused fear.

 

"So I have to encourage the science..." Violet traced her finger to the 'x' on the map, located right in front of her in real-time, "...here."

Before her, there was a rather ominous-looking tower.  It looked like the spire of a medieval church or castle, being that it was made of stone bricks smashed clumsily together between crumbling mortar, and also appeared to be eroding away.  There were no window or door features; instead, holes smashed open in the walls, gesturing into abyss.  Well, it was night-time.

There were several other strange decorations Violet could only just make out: feathers, studded here and there.  Also an abundance of bird shit splattered all over the walls.

"Gross," Violet muttered, deciding to take the first of many baby steps into the stubbly milk-tooth maw that seemed to function as an entrance.  She noticed an owl sitting on a tree nearby, but didn't say anything to it.  Speaking to owls wasn't really a common practice.

The building was lit inside by a couple of oil-lamps on the walls.  Violet almost remarked aloud on how nobody used oil lamps in the 21st century, and energy-saving light bulbs really were a better alternative, but then remembered she was meant to find Griselda.  

Suddenly she became aware of a greater presence above her.  

Cooing.  Clicking.  Flapping.

 And like albescent Rorschach tests, the theme of bird excrement became plainly obvious on the walls of the inside, too.  Above, in thousands of small-ish cubby holes that circled around the wall, were hundreds upon hundreds of pigeons.

Violet realised something: that this was more than the average amount of pigeons you usually find in a building.  She also realised this number was higher than the amount of pigeons she was comfortable with.  Ten pigeons was her maximum.  Were she to be a toddler in a restaurant given a fun activity sheet to work with, and she was required to count more than ten pigeons in a picture, she would cry.  Violet Irving was massively unsettled by this quantity of birds.

And so, as it turned out, was Griselda Pules, only about a yard away.

"God damn it!" shrieked Griselda, tearing out a section of her hair and throwing it on the floor, stamping on it.  "You're all so- so annoying! Stop making those weird noises, I can't stand it!  And you, you with the weird beak- I hate you especially!  Stop looking at me like that!"  Griselda sank to the stone-cold ground in fits of noisy sobs.  "I can't believe Granddad died for this!"

"Um..." Understandably, Violet was uncertain of whether to speak up or not.  "Is this a bad time?"

One of Griselda's ears twitched, and she whipped her head around.  It was dark, but the perfect figure of Violet Irving cast its own distinct silhouette Griselda already recognised.  Her pupils dilated and then constricted, as Griselda's mouth cast itself into a wobbly shape of utter horror.  " _Violet Irviiiiiiiiiing!_ " Griselda wailed.  "Why- why- why this?!"

"Er-" Violet raised a hand to protest, and then looked around.

The pigeons had a fixated glare.  A fixated glare that was fixated on her, specifically.

"Somebody save me," Griselda sobbed, "save me from this horrible nightmare!"

Violet, for all her street-smarts and social prowess, was completely unsure of what to do.  Griselda remained a wailing shrieking wreck of a girl on the floor, sucking her thumb and rocking back and forth.  The pigeons, despite conceptually being expressionless, seemed to have been angered.

Something hustled behind her, and Violet became aware of a pigeon directly behind her head.

"I'll leave," she said quickly, and got the hell out of there.


	4. In Which Griselda Murders Somebody

Enough of Violet and Griselda. It's time to introduce a new character.

Attie Alba was a girl with an alliterative name, and a number of other amicable traits. She enjoyed books and reading very much, and spent a lot of her time in the school library. This was the school library of Lixend Hill, incidentally, but she wouldn't have known Griselda. Griselda lived a rather generic life, and Attie lived an exciting one rather vicariously through the pages of novels in plastic dustjackets.

Attie Alba was also quite a pretty girl. She was only about five-foot-three, but similarly to a certain sea witch, she enjoyed wearing layered clothing. Her love of baggy cardigans and scarves made her seem a bit wider horizontally, and all wrapped up, like a giant egg. She had a very sweet little face, round, with no sharpness to it, and two keen and small eyes that stared intensely.

Despite being a gentle and low-key kind of person, Attie had a relentless philosophy in life. She did not aspire to be a follower. She aspired to be a leader. She did not just want to read good books. She wanted to be the one to write the good books.

It may seem surprising to some that she achieved her goal through a vast network of owls that flew throughout the town. Others have probably heard weirder things.

 

Tonight, a barn owl alighted on her windowsill. And quoth he: " _screeeeeeeeek! Screeeeeeek!_ " For that is the noise barn owls make.

"Oh, Titus, you're back," said Attie, trying not to be bitter about the pleasant night's sleep this goddamned noisy bird had just ruined with its dreadful screeches. "Have you got a story for me?"

Titus the horrendously noisy barn owl hopped into the bedroom on his two legs, perching dutifully on one of the bedknobs. " _Screeeeeek!_ " Titus screeched again.

Somehow Attie understood this, and she grabbed a reporter's notebook from her bedside table. "So Griselda Pules is now a pigeon farmer," she repeated, "and it's Violet's duty to get her back on track in the science profession where she really wants to be." The barn owl bobbed his head in a circle in a gesture of affirmation. Owls really do this kind of thing to maximise their depth perception, but Attie had long since made up a code of her own.

"This probably won't be one of the more interesting stories," Attie sighed, "but thank you anyway, Titus." The owl hopped away and out of the open window into god-knows-where; alternatively, he could have just gone into the owl box that lay nestled under a crevice in the roof.

With that, Attie thought the unpleasant disruptions for the night were over, and she went back to sleep.

As she hastily jumped back on that sleep-train, all she really thought of was her dream of becoming an author. Never did the overdue library books accumulating on the shelf cross her mind.

 

It was midnight. Griselda was still stuck in that stupid pigeon place. "Get to grips", indeed! Bloody things!

In the distance, Griselda heard the church bell chime for the middle of the night, and felt yet another pang of despair in her heart. She was tired, she wanted sleep. Yet here she was, having a five-hour-long panic attack because of these idiot birds and their noises.

"God, I hated that cuttlefish girl. Don't you?"

"Yeah. Having the nerve to come in here. She's signing her death warrant."

"That crazy old woman probably sent her here. We should have her exterminated."

"Yeah! Exterminate!"

"Kill off that foolish bint!"

Griselda suddenly realised in her stupor that these pigeons may or may not have been talking smack about Violet Irving, and some other lady.

"Oh my god," she muttered, "I'm hallucinating. I want to go home." Despite this additional wish, her phone didn't yield any more battery life than it already had.

Something peculiar happened just then, which Griselda didn't quite want to believe. The pigeons reacted to this. Many of them shook, ruffling their own feathers, and then started walking around in unison. One by one, pigeon foot by pigeon foot, they started to circle the holes of the roof. They also began to bob their heads- with each footfall, they extended their heads, and in the gap between the next, they took it back. Before long Griselda couldn't tell if their heads moved or stayed in the same place as their bodies made undulations.

And then they started to sing.

_"Gringus, you do not hallucinate_

_We are the pidges of the dingy spinger_

_Walk do we, and singin are our voices_

_Keep the tinger of Lixer Clackus good un just_

 

_When the evil-doers rebble their ugly heggers_

_We are the ones who see and know_

_We are the pidges of vigilante justice_

_We expunge the baggle from this villy of good_

 

_You, Gringus, it is your responsbibble_

_Kill off them bad bad croguses_

_That is what you must do, as rooloo of the pidges_

_We will tell you when and where"_

 

"Hold on a minute!" Griselda cried. "I could have sworn you just said something about vigilante justice!"

But Griselda did not receive an answer straight away. The pigeons continued to circle. The footstep of a pigeon, for many, is difficult to notice. At its loudest, it is a faint patter on the paving of a city street. But there were so many pigeons here and such an echo in the stony room that it sounded like an army march.

At last one pigeon flew down to greet Griselda. This was the pigeon with the weird beak, and he had a disconcerting red stare, as well. "Yes, we did," said the pigeon, "we kill evil people."

Griselda couldn't really put her view of this into words, because firstly, she wasn't really all that opinionated and viewed things like capital punishment as too complex an issue for her. Secondly, she was literally being spoken to by a pigeon.

"I want to go home," was the best idea she came up with, so she said that.

"There will be no home until at least one candle in this birthday cake of evil is snuffed by your hand, Gringus," announced the pigeon. "As your grandfather has tragically died, the forces of protection over this village have weakened, and evil celebrates a centenary. It celebrates it with a huge gateau, studded with lights, and also crisps and jelly. Would you like that, Gringus? Do you want the evil to have crisps and jelly?"

"Well, no," Gringus- sorry, Griselda muttered. "Not really. Evil is bad and stuff."

There was a fevered clicking and cooing across the room, as the pigeons seemed to like this statement. "Evil is bad and stuff," they echoed.

"You start tonight," said the weird-beak pigeon. "George told us you were a weakling, so we've given you a simple task at your age level to start you off. Then when you get stronger you will extinguish higher threats."

"Till then, we can just kill them, right?" a pigeon in the back proclaimed. "Peck them to death. Or spread infectious disease. Man, I love those ones, they're mad fun." There was also agreement here.

Griselda feared voicing anything, as tonight was turning out to be rather strange. But saying anything was pointless anyway.

"The first person you must take down is..." the pigeon paused dramatically, "...Attie Alba."

Griselda gave a long, drawn-out gasp. "Attie Alba? No! I don't know who that is!"

"A SINNER!" screamed a pigeon in the back. "She is a filthy, no-good liar and a _villain!_ " The rest of the pigeons erupted into rancorous shouting, riddled with various insults.

"Do you know what the Alba girl keeps on her bookshelf, Gringus?" the beaky pigeon began.

"Um... no?"

"Several books from the library- yes, _your_ library. Do you use the library often, Gringus?"

"Not really, I use the Internet more-"

"You know how many people love that library, Gringus. So many people love that library. But what good is a library without its books?!"

"Well, it still has all its newspapers, magazines and computers, I guess, and those are also valuable sources you can cite in a paper, so-" Griselda was narrowly cut off.

"A library without books is a _terrible_ library!" yelled a chorus of tawny pigeons, flapping their wings. "It's awful! This is what Attie Alba wants for our village! She must be eliminated!"

Griselda, confused as all hell, cast her eyes to the beaky pigeon in hopes of an explanation. "She has not returned those books to the library for _months._ She doesn't even pay the fees," he murmured darkly. "Many people would love to read _Sense and Sensibility_ , or _Life of Pi!_ But can they? No! Not while this treacherous girl maintains her sick and selfish stash!"

"Selfish! Selfish! Selfish!" the pigeons chorused in the background. "Take her down, Gringus!"

 

Griselda did not know how she had been persuaded to do this, but later she found herself underneath a bedroom windowsill; presumably Attie Alba's if the map the pigeons had produced out of nowhere was correct. None of this really made much sense at all, but Griselda decided nothing really made much sense at twenty to one in the morning, so she went with it.

It was then she realised she had just been asked to murder a person. How did you murder a person with no weapon? And how did you murder them with no weapon if you were a scrawny teenage girl who didn't know how to make the bed, let alone kill someone with your bare fists?

She devised a short plan. She would climb the walls and get to the window, climb through the window, find Attie asleep and then smother her with her own pillow.

This was sick. Why was she even thinking about this?

Griselda remembered how terrifying the pigeons seemed. She remembered that they scared away Violet Irving. If they didn't fear Violet Irving, who did they fear? Nobody, probably.

_Peck them to death. Or spread infectious disease._

Griselda decided to get on with it.

She also did not know how to scale the side of a two-story house, but made her best attempt anyway. She began with the windowsill of the window below, which presumably was for a dining room- they had very nice furnishings in there. Very chic, Griselda noted, before she made a grab for the bit of wall above.

Annoyingly, the exterior was also very chic, and had that sort of decorative wall texture thing going on. This made it very painful to grab onto, and it covered Griselda's gammy palms in white scratches. With all the grace of a dead mealworm, Griselda lifted her feet in faith and started to climb up the house.

There was a strange rumbling of something as she struggled for traction, but she was so busy trying not to fall down and look like an idiot that she didn't notice it until late. When she had finally steadied a hand on the bedroom windowsill- _that_ was when the bizarre screaming bird came out of hiding.

_"SCREEEEEEEK! SCREEEEEEK!"_

"Holy shit!" was Griselda's initial reaction, and soon she started screaming too when the barn owl emerged from a box in the roof. Two black, soulless eyes on a heart-shaped face, and it was taking steps at her at an alarming pace. Griselda couldn't help but think the pigeons had sent her to her death.

(Titus the barn owl didn't really want to kill Griselda. Being so extremely trigger-happy on a whim is a trait exclusive to her. He was just rather curious as to why this bizarre human was hanging on his surrogate mother's windowsill, and had his intentions misinterpreted by the tricky mistress that is the language barrier. Incidentally, the cacophonous shriek of the barn owl is where the myth of the banshee originated!)

Unfortunately, what you see in parentheses can't always help you. It didn't help Griselda. Griselda was terrified. She had begun to feel the grease collecting on the underside of her palms, and the weight had sunk into her generic-brand trainers.

She would not be defeated in the middle of the night by a barn owl. Her family would not be able to afford two funerals in one week, by jingo!

From the throes of darkest panic arose a bizarre kind of empowerment. _Damn this owl! Damn it to hell!_ Griselda thought.  _I... am not... an ornithologist!_

Griselda did the opposite of falling off the windowsill. Only cementing her grip on the ledge, she swung her legs around and made a mighty lunge through the fenestration. She had conquered this window! She had accomplished something!

(For once.)

As something of an aftershock, she also conquered something else on her way in. It was soft and got in her way, and thanks to somesuch about physics it was sent straight to the floorboards with a loud _thump_. Griselda landed right on top of it, only for the _thump_ to be accompanied by a series of _cracks_.

 _Cracks_ that sounded vaguely bone-splitting...


	5. In Which A Gaytime Is Had

Hello, readers!  It's time for our special once-only feature:  _Keyword of the Moment_!  This chapter's keyword is the adverb _'vaguely'_ , meaning slightly or not fully certain.  If something is  _vaguely_ something, it may not even be that exact thing!

If you want an example, the thing Griselda landed on was vaguely bones.  

"Oh, don't be so clumsy next time," tutted a girl in the bed. "I spent a long time constructing that lifesize owl model, you know."

Griselda immediately looked down and saw the splayed corpse of a pseudo-owl (or _pseudowl_ ) scattered over the floor beneath her. It was made from soft, downy craft feathers and papier-maché bones. She, the clumsy godless oaf, had ruined this immaculate construction. She knew by the look on its now separated face that she had done wrong. The words echoed eternally in its bereaved glass eyes:  _why, Griselda? Why? Why me?_

"Well, never mind." The girl got out of bed and stood somewhat warily by her nightstand, addressing her petite face at the new intruder. "I'm sure it's nothing I can't fix. You must be Griselda Pules. My owls told me about you."

"Wha- yeah, that's my name, I think... owls?" Griselda turned around in slow horror to realise her every blunder had been observed under the watchful mire-like eyes of Titus, the barn owl, who was perched on the window. Actually, he just wanted to check things were okay, but you know how things are with owls being misconstrued as deadly omens and all.  It's such a pain.  It really does set the bird's rights movement back about a hundred years.

"Don't you know about the owls?" Attie asked primly. "You should do, you know."

"I know nothing about owls, and I don't know why I should," Griselda spat. "I'm a pigeon farmer."

"So I've been told." Attie was actually rather proud of herself, as she looked like the smart one in this conversation. "And why are you here, hmm?"

"It's going to sound really weird, I know, but-" Griselda attempted to struggle away from her possum-like posture, but accidentally slipped on a metacarpal and bashed her chin on the floor. "Ow! Er, you see, you have some un-returned library books on that shelf there." She waved a pathetic arm where she thought the bookcase was.  She was actually waving towards the wardrobe, but points for trying, Griselda.

"Do I?" Attie posed a finger against her chin in shallow thought. "Maybe I do. Sometimes it takes me a long time to finish books. It happens."

"But wait- there's more!" Griselda shouted from face-down. "Not returning library books is dangerous- and it's immoral, too! Really selfish, as well, you know, for people who like reading books and stuff.  B-because of you, they can't read those books!  So I'm going to have to kill you!"

Attie paused. She did not feel shock, nor did she feel anger. In fact, she was so nonplussed by this that she decided to make up a word: antiemotional. "Oh."

"Don't take it personally, it wasn't my idea-" the significantly homelier girl grunted, struggling to her elbows. "-but all in all, it's sort of like a greater good type thing, society needs it, you know, and-"

Now, Griselda was finally at eye-level with Attie. "-and wow! You're cute!"

Attie was legitimately confused, but managed to restrain this confusion to the single raise of an eyebrow. "What?"

"Look at you!" Griselda beamed all of a sudden. "I didn't get to see you properly when I came in through the window! You're so pretty!"

Attie's eyebrow settled. "I see."

"You have such a cute face and stuff!" Griselda struggled to her feet at last and bumbled over to the owly girl, touching her cheek and giggling. "Your eyes are like- they're like... they're like really nice things that are brown!  So cute! You're like an owl except you don't scream at everything!"

"I don't believe I ever gave you permission to talk shit about my owls," Attie said pointedly, her face a beautiful watercolour portrait of offence.

"I just want to take you home," Griselda slurred, "and dunk you in my coffee!"

"Griselda, I am not a homosexual," Attie muttered, "and I'm fairly certain somebody like you is not a coffee drinker. You're far too tired, so go home."

 

As it turned out, late-night antics bumbling around town talking to pigeons and breaking into houses had a negative effect on Griselda's health that following morning.

Arriving home had largely been a blur and a mystery. She did not remember how she left Attie's house, or for that matter how she got from Attie's house to her own. She had splattered herself over her bed like a freefaller approaches a high-speed drop, parachuteless, against a concrete school playground. And she still couldn't drive away the bounteous mental images of pigeons.

Her father had found her in this position upon entering her room. Griselda didn't usually oversleep; her lifestyle was too boring to have her compromise hours of shuteye. Amazingly, he wasn't drunk yet. "Griselda?"

"I feel..." she began croakily, voice arising from a mountainous hell of pillows, "like _death itself_."

"You want to stay off school today?" he offered. Griselda's dad may have been considered a bad parent by some, as he wasn't really in the business of enquiring into his daughter's lifestyle, but he was capable of identifying a girl who wouldn't do well at school that day.

She tried to emit a 'please', but actually made more of a human creaky-floorboard noise. Griselda's father understood this anyhow.

"Alright, sweetheart. Just take it easy. Would you like some ice cream? One of my work-mates brought us back a box from Australia."

"Yes, please."

The man left and returned a bit later, with an ice that was in a pleasantly gleaming golden wrapper. "I'm off to work now, pops. See you a bit later."

Griselda sat up a bit more and removed the ice cream from its foil enrobing. The snack was dipped in chocolate and covered with rocky clusters of honeycomb biscuit; beneath it was a combination of toffee and vanilla ice cream that was delightful and moreish yet with a cruel pang of cold. Griselda decided that she liked this ice-cream, and checked the label to see what exactly this brilliant Australian invention was.

She was home from school having a Golden Gaytime on her own.


End file.
